


Picnics and Persuasions

by MintSauce



Series: The Halfway House [7]
Category: Shameless (US)
Genre: Again, M/M, Picnics, proof of relationship, some smut
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-11
Updated: 2015-04-11
Packaged: 2018-03-22 10:31:01
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,357
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3725467
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MintSauce/pseuds/MintSauce
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Ian just wants Mickey to come to a work picnic. He wants to prove his mysterious boyfriend actually exists. Is that so much to ask?</p><p>Mickey just wants to stay in on his day off, so there may need to be some persuading.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Picnics and Persuasions

**Author's Note:**

> Again, ferries bring good things in terms of writing it seems. Or at least, more of it.

 When Ian wakes him up with a coffee and three of his favourite pop-tarts, pressing kisses against each bump of his spine, Mickey already knows that he’s going to be angling for something.

            He also already knows it’s something he’s probably not going to want to do or give.

            “Mick,” Ian says in that long drawn out way that’s basically a _can I have_ or _will I do_.

            He swears to God if this is the dog conversation again or if the fuckers already gotten one and it’s taking a shit in their living room right this second, he’s going to slit Gallagher’s fucking throat. Loving him and being left with the dog by default be damned.

            “No,” he says, burying his face further into the pillow.

            He’ll move in a second, drink his coffee and eat his pop-tarts. No sense in wasting them, even if they do come with an ulterior motive.

            “You don’t even know what I was going to ask,” Ian says and Mickey can just hear the pout in his voice.

            Fucker probably looks adorable, bottom lip jutting out and eyes just that little bit wider than usual. He’s always pretty cute looking, not that Mickey will admit it, but Ian really knows how to use what he’s got to his advantage.

            Of course he does.

            Or maybe Mickey’s just a sucker. It’s probably both.

            “The fact you’re bargaining for it means it’s gonna be a no,” he points out.

            Ian huffs, breath fanning out hot and sticky across Mickey’s shoulder blades. It’s too warm for the giant idiot to be draped over him like he is, but Mickey’s not really going to complain.

            “Just hear me out,” he says.

            “No.”

            Mickey just knows Ian rolled his eyes then.

            “I’m going to talk anyway.”

            He’d known he would.

            “So there’s this like barbeque picnic thing –”

            “No.”

            “– that my co-workers are having,” Ian just continues on like he hadn’t even spoken. “And I thought it’d be good for them to meet you.”

             Mickey groans, wonders if he could suffocate himself if he pushed his face into the pillow hard enough. “It really wouldn’t,” he says. “I’m gonna pass.”

            The last thing he needs is a load of uptight rich, Northside pricks ruining his day off with Ian by judging him for his tattoos and his attitude. It’s not the gay thing. It’s been years, he doesn’t care much about that anymore, especially not when it comes to people he could care less about, but… still no. He’s not going somewhere just to be judged. It isn’t happening.

            Over his dead body.

            “ _Please_ , Mick,” Ian says.

            Nope. Not happening. Not ever happening. He’d rather go have his wisdom teeth pulled with no aesthetic.

            “It’d mean a lot to me.”

            Ian can plead all he likes, but Mickey still isn’t going to be caught dead at some faggy ass picnic. Ew.

            “They think I made you up,” Ian says. “Please, come on. We don’t have to stay long. Just let them see I do in fact have a boyfriend and then we’ll go.”

            Hold on, what?

            Mickey lifts his face up out the pillow and squints at Ian. He meant to just narrow his eyes, but honestly, he’s still too tired to pull off anything more than squinting. “What? They don’t think I fuckin’ exist? Why the fuck not?” he says.

            Ian looks sheepish as he shrugs, presses a kiss to Mickey’s shoulder. Like it’s no big deal. Like it isn’t the worst news fucking ever to hear that people have no clue Ian _is not on the fucking market_. That he isn’t Mickey’s.

            They can all fuck right off with that.

            “They’ve just never met you, Mick,” Ian says.

            “So that means I don’t exist,” he scoffs.

            “Every time I invite you to something, you don’t turn up,” Ian point out.

            Mickey rolls his eyes and reaches past Ian – careful not to dislodge the position that the redhead has plastered along Mickey’s side – and grabs one of his pop-tarts. “Don’t make it sound like I don’t tell you point blank I ain’t gonna fucking go,” he says.

            Ian huffs. “It just looks suspicious.”

            “Fuck them,” Mickey says around a mouthful. He narrows his eyes – squints – again. “They been hitting on you?”

            “What? All of them?” Ian laughs. “No, come on, Mick. That’s not the point. I just – ”

            Mickey finishes chewing and scowls. “They have haven’t they? Fuckers think you’re single. Of course they’re trying to get all up on that.” He waves a hand at Ian’s body and Ian laughs, blushes.

            “Aww, Mick,” he says, kissing Mickey like he can’t help it. “That’s the sweetest thing you’ve ever said to me.”

            “Fuck off,” Mickey says.

            It’s not like the idiot doesn’t know he’s beautiful.

            Ian’s a goddamn fucking catch and there’s a reason Mickey puts giant hickeys all over him in obvious places. If people go around thinking they can get all up on that, they would. They’d be fucking stupid not to.

            “So will you come?” Ian asks, fingers dancing down Mickey’s spine. He’s looking at Mickey all soft like he sometimes does. Like Mickey’s worth something real. (How he can do that when Mickey’s got pop-tart all up in his teeth and on his face, he’ll never know.) “Not for long, I promise.”

            Mickey rolls his eyes. “’Course I’m gonna fucking come. I’ll kick their fucking asses.”

            Ian smirks. “You can’t give them a beat down, Mick.”

            “Watch me.”

            Ian takes the remainder of Mickey’s pop-tart off him and drops it back onto the plate on the bedside table. He slips a hand behind Mickey’s neck, tugs him closer. He kisses him filthily, open-mouthed and a little disgusting. He pulls Mickey over him and palms his arse. He ruts up, dick a hard line against Mickey’s hip through his sweatpants.

            “I’d rather watch you suck me dick,” Ian says.

            His eyes are hooded when Mickey pulls back and looks at him. Mickey smirks, dirty. “Is that so?” he says, slipping a hand down into Ian’s sweat pants to where it’s hot and a little sticky already. He jerks Ian rough with a dry hand a few times and then moves his hand down further, past Ian’s balls to rubs his fingers against Ian’s perineum.

            Ian moans.

            “You gotta ask nicer than that, Gallagher,” he says.

            He lifts up, pulls his hand out and starts to trail the path downwards with his mouth. Ian’s skin is almost feverishly hot. The outline of his dick is clear and defined through his sweatpants. It’s straining against the material.

            “Fuck, _please_ , Mick,” Ian says, winding his fingers into Mickey’s hair.

            “Please, what?” he asks, just to be difficult. He puts his mouth against the outline, sucks at the thick material.

            Ian’s hips buck and he moans again.

            “Please, suck my dick.”

            Mickey grins, wolfish and tugs at Ian’s trousers just enough for the head of his cock to pop free of the waistband. He sucks on it briefly, gently and then harder. Dips his tongue into the slit and flicks it just under the head.

            Ian’s whole body goes stiff, like he’s received a shock, the grip he has on Mickey’s hair just this side of painful. He breathes out long and slow, like its being torn out of him.

Mickey pulls back to drag him out of his trousers and when he moves back down, Ian lifts his knees, bracketing Mickey between them like he knows he likes. Hiding him away from the rest of the world as he closes his pale thighs around Mickey’s head.

            Ian’s thighs are strong enough to crush him, but he’s always so careful. Mickey loves making him lose that control.

            And he does, sliding his mouth straight down Ian’s cock until he’s swallowed him to the root. Nose buried in the scratchy red hair at the base of Ian’s dick, he fights off his gag reflex and moans around Ian’s length.

            He loves this. Loves having Ian’s cock in his mouth, in his throat. Loves having Ian’s thighs around his head, calves resting heavily against his shoulder blades. He loves having all he can taste, all he can feel, all he can possibly _know_ in that moment be Ian.

            Just _IanIanIan_.

            He loves everything about it.

            Loves the way he can get Ian to lose it, to just hold on to Mickey’s hair and buck his hips up, fucking Mickey’s face.

            He loves the hot splash of come down his throat. He’s not too keen on the taste of it, but he loves knowing what he’s brought Ian to. He loves knowing he has this control, that he can do this.

            Most of all though and the part that always has him come in his fucking boxers, barely even rutting against the mattress is feeling Ian’s cock going soft in his mouth. He loves the feel of it, the difference to the hard length pressing against his tongue.

            He loves the way that Ian shudders, whines in his throat, so sensitive after it all. He loves the neat little way that Ian starts to fit in his mouth, the way he pets Mickey’s hair after it all, as they both come down.

            He loves suckling on Ian’s cock just one last time, pressing a sappy kiss to it before he says goodbye and crawls back up Ian’s body. He loves that ghostly feeling of the weight on his tongue, even when Ian fucks his tongue into Mickey’s mouth, tasting himself and moaning again, quieter.

            He loves all of it, but he thinks he loves the end just that little bit more. He loves the pliant, softer side of Ian in these moments. He loves having the control to do anything he wants to the redhead, to bring him over that edge again and again and have him welcome Mickey doing so.

            He wouldn’t admit it, but he also loves the dumb way Ian will stare at him afterwards too. The way he’s looking at him right then, mouth still feathering kisses against Mickey’s lips, but eyes open.

            Mickey used to find it weird when people kissed with their eyes open. He still does, when it’s a proper, filthy kiss. These softer ones, these sweets ones, he doesn’t mind watching Ian’s eyes for that. It almost makes them better somehow.

            It makes it better, because then, when he’s finally overcome with the feeling of it all, he can slip his own eyes shut and bury his head underneath Ian’s chin. He can kiss the scars he’s made there at the bottom of Ian’s throat and he can still be completely wrapped up in _IanIanIan._ Maybe not quite the same as before, but different, still as good.

            _Fuck_ , he’s getting pathetic in his old age.

            “Your coffees gone cold,” Ian says when he opens his eyes again, pulling on a pair of Mickey’s boxers in favour of his sweatpants from before.

            Mickey just grunts, then grimaces as Ian comes back from the bathroom with a wet cloth. He tugs off Mickey’s uncomfortable boxers and wipes the drying spunk off from around his dick.

            It’s a caring moment that makes something ache in Mickey’s chest at the same time as he feels like a fucking geriatric who’s shit themselves inside their adult diaper. It’s a weird combination, so he just lies back and grimaces his way through it.

            Ian probably knows what’s going on in his mind better than he does since he still continues to do this little routine every time Mickey pops a nut inside his boxers. (It actually happens way too often, Mickey’s starting to realise.)

            “The barbeques at four,” Ian says, kissing Mickey’s slack mouth.

            Mickey grunts again, already slipping back into sleep.

            He hears Ian laugh, hears him pick up and start drinking the coffee he made for Mickey as he leaves the room. He prefers it cold. It had probably been his plan all-a-fucking-long the dick.

 

*****

 

It’s as bad as he thought it was going to be.

            Ian had stuffed Mickey into the shower, had the audacity to refuse to fuck him in there ( _we don’t have time, Mick. Maybe if you had moved your ass out of bed when I’d said…)_ , insisted on Mickey wearing something other than the tank top he’d been wearing for the past three days, chased him around the apartment spraying him with deodorant and then stood tapping his foot whilst Mickey styled his hair just right in the bathroom mirror.

            “If you want some perfect looking prick to turn up, take someone else,” Mickey had snapped at Ian’s reflection. Honestly, he was a little offended that Ian seemed to be insisting Mickey try and be something a little different than himself. Ian had said time and time again that he liked Mickey just how he was, his actions were saying a little different from his words right now though.

            Ian rolled his eyes, but the look on his face softened as he stepped up behind Mickey. He wound his arms around Mickey’s waist and pulled them together, pressing a kiss against the back of Mickey’s neck.

            “You’re perfect,” he said. “Just like this, just like anything. That shirt is just really disgusting, even for you.”

            “Fuck you,” Mickey said, laughing slightly. “ _Even for me_. What about all that shit with the deodorant!”

            Ian smirked. “Mick, it’s hot as balls outside as you said yourself, we’re going to be stuck on a train for over half an hour. I’d like to be able to breathe.”

            It was hard not to laugh when Ian put it like that. “Ay, ay, okay,” Mickey said. “Fuck you very much. Thought you liked the way I smell.”

            “I love the way you smell,” Ian said, kissing up Mickey’s neck to his ear and biting down on the lobe softly.

            Mickey liked the way they looked together. They were both pale, but he liked the contrast between Ian’s bright red hair and Mickey’s darker. They looked like shadow and charcoal. Different, but at the same time they sort of mattered. There couldn’t be the one without the other.

            “Other people just might not,” Ian pointed out.

            “Fuck other people.”

            Ian bared his teeth in the mirror, reaching down to grab Mickey’s dick roughly. “No, _not_ fuck other people,” he snarled, red already starting to creep up his neck to his face at the thought.

            Mickey laughed. “Don’t get your panties in a twist, princess,” he said. “Yours is the only cock for me. Even if it is attached to a drama queen.”

            Just like that Ian’s whole demeanour relaxed and he flashed Mickey a bright smile. He landed a sharp blow against Mickey’s arse, shouted “Giddy-up, we need to go!” and then ran out cackling.

            “Do that one more fucking time!” Mickey warned, shouting after him.

            “Later, princess!”

            Other than the sex earlier, that had been the only high point of this entire situation. He’d been able to feel his balls – practically the only place Ian hadn’t covered in antiperspirant – start to sweat buckets as soon as he stepped outside their air-conditioned haven of an apartment. The train ride had been horrible and stuffy, the old guy sitting across the row stinking to all high heaven the entire way. Mickey never had gotten that coffee and despite having had a decent number of hours sleep, he could feel the tell-tale twitch behind his left eye.

            And then now, to top it off, he was standing here, in the middle of a fucking picnic.

            “So Mickey,” a preppie girl with long blonde hair and fake tan smeared everywhere on her but the backs of her knees called Anna or Annie or Alice or something says, having cornered him almost immediately upon spotting him there with Ian.

            “ _Annie_ ,” Ian warns.

            She waves him off. “I’m not going to interrogate him, Jesus. I just wanted to know a little about this mysterious boyfriend of yours. Like, how did you two meet?”

            Why was that always a question that was asked? Why was that something that mattered to a complete stranger?

            “We were roommates,” he says.

            He’d kill for a smoke right about now, but Ian has the pack and he’s going on about cutting down at the moment like a complete douche. Ian starting work at a gym is both singularly the best and worst thing to ever happen to Mickey. On the one hand, Ian’s body had gotten as tight as fuck. He’d always been hot, but recently there were muscles in places Mickey had never occurred a person would want to bite before, but _fuck did he_. On the other hand though, it had also turned Ian into a health freak.

            The disgusting smoothies and protein shakes and even the increased number of vegetables in their apartment, Mickey could live with. Shit like morning runs and cutting down on smoking he had an issue with. To Mickey, exercise was a couple of pull-ups, lifting a few weights and going a particularly rough round in the sack.

            It was not _running_. Not on a treadmill and not through the streets of Chicago at six a.m. each morning.

            _“It’s building my stamina, Mick,” Ian had said one of the times Mickey had expressed his feelings on the matter._

_Mickey had snorted. “Oh yeah, so what the fuck was that last night, Gallagher? You blew in like two fucking seconds. Stamina my fucking ass.”_

_“Well if you insist,” Ian had laughed, slamming Mickey face down on their kitchen table and knocking his legs apart. He’d then proceeded to seriously fuck Mickey’s ass, but looking back, Mickey didn’t really know what the hell it had proven to either of them._

_Other than the fact that they were both great in bed._

“Ooh, in college?” Annie asks.

            Mickey scoffs, “Fuck no,” and Ian punches him in the arm.

“Foster care,” Ian explains and his oh-so-best-friend from work blinks, surprised. Obviously Ian hadn’t been so forthcoming with information about himself as they’d all probably thought.

Mickey sometimes wonders what people see when they look at Ian. Or actually, he thinks he knows. They see some dopey-eyed sappy motherfucker who’d help grannies cross the road and give up his seat for some whale of a pregnant lady. And sure maybe that was all true, but he wasn’t innocent like they thought.

And not just because he had a mouth on him that was downright sinful.

Ian’s temper wasn’t anything to fuck with and he could hold a grudge better than anyone Mickey had ever known. Sometimes he still dragged up shit that had happened when the kid was twelve that Mickey had long since forgotten.

Both Ian’s temper and his tendencies towards holding grudges were clear in his still stilted relationship with his siblings. The little psychopath and the black one Ian was fine with, the other ginger was alright in his books too. Lip and fucking Fiona though, even if they had started making an effort, they were still in the dog house as far as Ian was concerned. And they would be for years to come.

“Oh, I’m so sorry. That’s horrible,” Annie says.

            “Don’t be,” Mickey tells her.

            She smiles awkwardly. “Still at least it let you two meet,” she says, like Mickey hadn’t even spoken.

            The thing is, she’s pretty much hit the nail on the head. Mickey thanks every fucking God there is for being put in the system just for that fact alone. He doesn’t want to think about where he would be without Ian.

Probably nowhere good.

“So what do you do, Mickey?” another guy that Mickey hadn’t been paying attention to, but who had apparently been listening this whole time asks.

“I’m a bin man,” Mickey says.

“Oh,” the guy says, smiling politely. “And do you like that?”

“It pays the bills.”

Mickey scratches his cheek, bored and notices the exact moment the two people in front of him spot his tattoos. The expressions on their faces freeze into one of forced, stunned politeness. There’s also a little bit of fear there.

            “I’m gonna get a fucking beer,” Mickey says, ready to jump ship. “You want anything?”

            “The same,” Ian just has time to say before Mickey is taking off in the direction of the table of food and drink they have set up.

            Why anyone would willingly want to sit outside in the fucking sun on a day like this Mickey didn’t know. Days like this were made to sit in an air-conditioned room with an ice cold beer. None of this lukewarm shit, burning to death while being judged.

            He wanted to go home already, but even he would admit staying ten minutes didn’t make the train ride worth it. Even if they had jumped the turnstiles.

            Mickey snags two of the little sausage roll things and another weird ass looking piece of something that tastes like a foot. He stuffs another sausage roll in his mouth to cover the taste, grabs his beers and leaves before anyone can try and make small talk.

            He could already see a couple of people eying him up, probably wondering who the fuck he was and why he was there. Like hell was he sticking around to let them ask!

            “– he just seems dangerous, Ian. Are you sure you’re okay? Do you… you don’t have to stay with him,” Annie is saying when she gets back.

            Mickey wonders if she notices Ian’s face starting to turn red.

            “No offense, but you don’t know him, Annie,” he says.

            “Aye, so kindly shut the fuck up,” Mickey says, tossing Ian a beer and a sausage roll and not listening to the woman as she huffs. “There was some green shit back there that was fucking disgusting,” he tells Ian.

            “Guacamole?”

            He shrugs. “Dunno, but it tasted like a foot.”

            “I made that,” the guy who’s name Mickey doesn’t care enough to try and remember says. He sounds offended, probably is.

            “Well then heads up on that, man,” Mickey says. “You’re welcome.”

            Ian huffs out a laugh and cuffs Mickey around the back of the head, hand lingering for longer than it probably should. He skims his fingers down over the backs of Mickey’s shoulders and says, “Mick, you’re burning.”

            Mickey twists his head to look down at his shoulders and sure enough, they’re pink. Great. Just another reason people should not be out in the sun in weather like this. Chicago is full of pale ass motherfuckers and Mickey’s one of the especially unfortunate ones that turns crispy almost as soon as he steps outside.

            He thinks longingly of his and Ian’s tree, the shade it used to provide all those years ago.

            “What the fuck did you think was going to happen!” he huffs, already thinking of how uncomfortable it’s going to be later.

            He fucking hates sunburn.

            “Calm down,” Ian says, bending slightly to rustle through one of his pockets. “Here.” He pulls out a tube of sunblock and manhandles Mickey until his backs to him. “You should have remembered to put it on before we left.”

            “Yeah because I can reach my fucking shoulders, Firecrotch. You should have fucking remembered.”

            “What am I your carer now?”

            “Screw you. The hell use is it having a boyfriend if you don’t think of these things for me?”

            He knows Ian is smirking without having to look. “I can think of a few things.”

            Mickey rolls his eyes. “Why the hell do you even have that with you, anyway?” he asks. “What the hell else you hiding in there?”

            Instead of making the obvious pun, Ian just laughs again. “Cargo shorts, Mick,” he says. “I’ve told you before, lots of pockets.”

            “Doesn’t mean you have to use them all,” he mutters, but honestly, he’s glad Ian does. The feeling of the cream spreading over his pinking shoulders is glorious.

            Even if Ian’s hands on him does make his cock twitch.

            “There,” Ian says, slapping Mickey’s skin sharply enough to hurt.

            Mickey whips around and glares at him. “What the fuck did I say!”

            “I told you, later, princess.”

            Mickey rolls his eyes. “You’re a fucking idiot.” He hates how that comes out affectionate. He used to be so much better at being scary. He really is growing old, sometimes he realises.

            Ian just grins and presses a kiss against Mickey’s hair like the faggot-y ass sap that he is. Mickey likes to pretend he doesn’t love it. He doesn’t know who he’s fooling anymore. When he looks back up, Ian’s two fuckhead workmates are watching them.

            Annie’s expression has softened a little, although she still looks worried.

            All over some fucking tattoos and the odd swear word, it’s ridiculous, some people.

            “You two are certainly something, I’ll give you that,” Mr No Name says.

            “Yeah, still believe I don’t fucking exist now?” Mickey retorts and Annie flushes. Even the guy looks a little bit uncomfortable.

            “He told you about that, huh?” Annie asks, glancing down at her feet.

            “Uh-huh.”

            “Nothing personal, we just hadn’t met you yet. Thought maybe he was trying to cover for something.”

            Mickey snorts. “He’s already a giant ass homo, what else he got to hide?”

            Annie chokes on her spit and the guy looks like he’s about to have an aneurysm.

            Ian just laughs, loud and bright and wonderful like he always does. It’s a sound Mickey could listen to all day, like the giant homo he also is. “Ass homo,” he says. “Isn’t that a bit redundant?”

            “No.”

            “That makes you a cock homo then I suppose?” Ian asks and his friends are still choking, eyes bugging out their heads a little.

            Mickey snorts and says, “Nah man, I’m all about the balls,” just so he can hear that laugh again.

            Sure, Mickey wants to go home already and he’d still rather not have come in the first place, but it’s almost worth it just to see the expression on these peoples’ faces. It’s a whole fucking comedy sketch on its own.

            Picnics may be fucking stupid, but this here, this is gold.


End file.
